Police attack Minneapolis Critical Mass and arrest around 20 cyclists

Friday, August 31 2007 @ 11:39 PM UTC

Contributed by: rechelon

The first day of the pReNC gathering in Minneapolis/St. Paul (in preparation for next year's Republican National Convention) saw an utterly unprovoked attack by police on a non-confrontational Critical Mass ride. Around 20 people have been arrested, several from out of state.
Police attack Minneapolis Critical Mass @ pReNC and arrest around 20 cyclists

The first day of the pReNC gathering in Minneapolis/St. Paul (in preparation for next year's Republican National Convention) saw an utterly unprovoked attack by police on a non-confrontational Critical Mass ride. Around 20 people have been arrested, several from out of state.

A strong critical mass of around 400 or more cyclists were attacked by the police at the corners of LaSalle and Grand as the tail end of the Mass went under the bridge.

"They just drove into the crowd and nearly hit me, it was totally unprovoked" proclaimed a cyclist who was in the last 5 bikes.

Afterwards the mass returned to the corner and chanted "Let them go" at the police. This resulted in police threatening the crowd with mace and calling for reinforcements, soon the cruisers were joined by a paddy wagon and cruiser coming down LaSalle and then joined by another cruiser and a SUV cruiser and more. What ensued was arrests and then posturing as many onlookers and massers were unsure what happened. At a certain point most of the mass started to ride as a older policeman with a white moustache and a large canister of mace stepped out of his cruiser.

What transpired resulted in the arrest of bystanders, the creation of a riot style line of police that arrested a cyclist who made the mistake of falling behind them. According to an eyewitness as she attempted to move from behind the police line to join her friends she was told "Get of your bike and get on the ground."

At this point 20 people are believed to be arrested as the police force of Minneapolis flexes its brutality in the midsts of the PreNC anarchist and anti-authoritarian planning happening during this weekend.

Around 20 people were arrested today by them police while participating in Critical Mass with the pReNC. Many have been pepper sprayed as well as made and tasers.

The facts as we have them at the moment:

Cruisers #993 and #9980 drove into the back of the mass at the corner of LaSalle and Grand and started to arrest a few cyclists. More arrests ensued with police resorting to pepper spraying the crowd and creating a line in which they advanced and arrested those who fell behind.

Badge and car numbers that we know of:
4151 (maced people)
4046 (tazer, excessive force)
956 (tazer, excessive force)
car 999 - pushed into an individual's bike
unmarked car, license plate RVX-707, cop with badge number 6837 - hit an individual

Tasers, pepperspray and mace. As well as one cop attempted to ram and run over a cyclist.

Those Arrests Confirmed:
Gus Granley
Paul Krisopovich
David Rentz'
Alan Palazello
Dohovan Lessard
Joshua Nickels
Julia Bates
Isaac Peter (a minor)
Alia Trindle
Magdelena Kaluza (a minor)
Luce Guillen-Givins
Jeff Pemberton
Joel Leders
Daniel Barnett

Here is a list of people arrested and booked at the same time as the others according to the jail's website:

Jeff Fick
Hunter Gsoell
Michael Kirk

If you know these people and know that they were part of Critical Mass or the pReNC, let us know immediately so that jail support can work to help them. Many out-of-state Anarchists journeyed to the pReNC alone and it is our fear that they may not have written down the jail support number and now be languishing in jail without our knowledge.

Check Twin Cities Indymedia for more details and photos. If you have any helpful information or to get in contact with local jail support please post there.

http://twincities.indymedia.org/

http://twincities.indymedia.org/newsw.../index.php

Police attack Minneapolis Critical Mass and arrest around 20 cyclists | 15 comments | Create New Account

The following comments are owned by whomever posted them. This site is not responsible for what they say.

Authored by: engine summer on Saturday, September 01 2007 @ 12:58 AM UTC

why is it necessary to post names here? some employers google the names of prospective employees as a matter of course. (not that having a job is very "revolutionary" but, well...shutup). i remember when the village voice printed the name of everyone whod been arrested at the RNC, i didnt really think about it until a friend of mine whod been in jail was like "WTF! the whole world does not need to know my name and that i was arrested at a protest."

Authored by: rechelon on Saturday, September 01 2007 @ 01:17 AM UTC

Again these names were already listed online by the jail. They're already gonna be available to Google, regardless of anything we post.

I understand your concern, usually I balk at the very idea of posting people's names about ANYthing. But those on hand of the pReNC and the legal support group came to the conclusion that it was best to let send them out.

There were A LOT of folks just arriving and many on their own from out of state and no one was really counting on or prepared for getting arrested or any sort of action whatsoever. This was not so much an action that people committed to, this was a fell swoop upon us. Family members and friends from across the country have been asking for this info and we in turn need to know who's arrested and not in order to help these people out.

Authored by: rechelon on Saturday, September 01 2007 @ 01:23 AM UTC

That is to say of course that we know that people got arrested, we just don't know precisely which of these names were from the Critical Mass ride and which were just from the rest of the city's nightly cop trawl.

Authored by: Admin on Saturday, September 01 2007 @ 08:09 AM UTC

People need to understand that the police are arresting people in order to gather information before next year's protests. People who are wanting to do stuff at next year's protests should think twice about participating in high risk for arrest events like Critical Mass.

I feel uncomfortable about listing these names here, even if they have been made public by the police. Does anybody else think that we should remove them?

Chuck

Authored by: talonx on Saturday, September 01 2007 @ 09:10 AM UTC

I understand the reason for having them up, however, if they haven't explicitly said, "post my name" I see it as kind of problematic. I'd say remove them for safeties sake, worse comes to worse families and friends will have to be worried for a day or two.

Authored by: exworker on Saturday, September 01 2007 @ 10:19 AM UTC

I agree with Chuck here. It's important to abstain from doing too many things that could possibly draw attention from law enforcement right now to ensure that the RNC event is as air tight as possible. Not only are they gathering information about people, places and events, they're using intimidation tactics which can prove to be very effective.

I also don't agree with posting the names of individuals here without their explicit consent, which I'm assuming you don't have.

Authored by: rechelon on Saturday, September 01 2007 @ 11:19 AM UTC

Just to clarify, it's the perception of those of us organizing the pReNC that re-posting these names to let activists know what the police already know, is perfectly alright.

Nothing about posting these names will give the cops ANY info about the RNC organizing efforts. Our security is tight and it seems obvious that the cops are incompentent on all this. Obviously this was done to gather info and disrupt the pReNC, but they already know what little is here about those arrested. I fail to see the consent issue over RE-posting someone's very limited arrest info that's already hella public.

The on-the-ground reality is that Critical Mass has been sacrosanct from local police harrassment for years and many of those who participated were out of state Anarchists not planning on getting arrested or taking "action" with no local contacts who had tight schedules and the like that are now completely disrupted.

This is solely to help them out. And the perception of those who've contacted those in jail is that they either do not or would not in any way have a problem with forwarding this info to their distant comrades.

In any case, we'll keep a list up on Twin Cities Indymedia.

Authored by: exworker on Saturday, September 01 2007 @ 12:25 PM UTC

I understand that you're not giving the police anything they already don't know. It still makes me uncomfortable. I guess I fail to see why posting a list of full names on activist/anarchist sites helps these folks out, if indeed the information is readily available from other sources.

Also, while I support everything ya'll are doing, I was just stating that cautionary steps should be taken when participating in anything 'pre-rnc' related, to avoid situations like this that will inevitably come about.

Not to get down on your efforts, as I fully support them! :)

Authored by: -a-scribe on Saturday, September 01 2007 @ 02:51 PM UTC

the only prob I see is if there are names in the booking list who weren't
arrested at CM but happened to be booked at the same time, and who
would rather not be associated w/ the pReNC. but... ???

in any case - damn. i've been thinking about this pretty much straight
ever since i read about it last night. the fact that this is my old city and
i'm not there. and the fact that the cops didn't have the balls/ovaries
(mostly just balls, or lack thereof) to come down on an exclusively
pReNC event, instead of inevitably catching some non-pReNC people in
the trawler at CM too, who may or may not have had a clue what they
were getting into. but also the fact that they arrested some strong and
brave and organized people.

(also, and this is not immediately important, but the attack happened at
GranT street, not GranD, which may or may not be significant since
Grant is by the mpls convention center, where I believe some RNC stuff
is going to be. that could be a particular message from the cops or just
coincidence. either way, it's backfiring.)

Authored by: Admin on Saturday, September 01 2007 @ 05:48 PM UTC

The problem with posting these names isn't so much that you are providing the police with the names they already have, but public lists of activist names can be used by future employers to deny job and by bad people like neo-fascists who have used similar lists in the past to harass people.

I'm think that Infoshop News may need a policy that prohibits the posting of arrest lists like this one.

Chuck

Authored by: unholylies on Saturday, September 01 2007 @ 08:56 PM UTC

if the names are already posted, i think it'd make sense to keep them up until the duration of their stay in jail, after which they should be taken down... that way, the people looking for them can find out where they are without unnecessarily keeping the names up longer than they have to be.

Authored by: mario_buda on Sunday, September 02 2007 @ 06:24 AM UTC

To what degree does getting arrested at a critical mass show that you're an "activist?"

Authored by: Laurel on Sunday, September 02 2007 @ 05:39 PM UTC

Bike Amici is a new organization focused on bicyclists rights. We think the Minneapolis St Paul area is in sore need of better education around bicycle issues. Especially with gas prices going up and people biking to save the planet, we need to be sure that bicyclists are not targeted as radicals. Check out www.greencycles.blogspot.com for an interesting case...our first project is an amicus curiae brief in support of Stephan Orsak (who was stopped, tased, arrested for legally bicycling at MSP airport, note: the police there do NOT like bicyclists) arguing that police do NOT have the right to stop a bicyclist from legally cycling just because they feel that it might be unsafe for the bicyclist.

---
Bicyclists have rights just like motorists...or should!

Authored by: CaseyFord on Sunday, September 02 2007 @ 09:11 PM UTC

These cyclists ARE radicals. That's why they were targeted.

Authored by: Admin on Sunday, September 02 2007 @ 09:26 PM UTC

On a more positive note, I was told today that the Friday Critical Mass here in Kansas City had 150-200 riders. They didn't experience any police problems.

I also checked out the work that the new bicycle collective is doing to open a space in the building that houses our infoshop. We've got some cool things happening here in KC.

Chuck

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Police attack Minneapolis Critical Mass and arrest around 20 cyclists

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